COLUMBUS: Ohio State and Boston College have scheduled a home-and-home football series for the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

The games are scheduled to be played Sept. 19, 2020, in Columbus, and Sept. 18, 2021, in Chestnut Hill. Each year Ohio State plays Oregon a week earlier.

The Buckeyes have won all three previous meetings with Boston College: 34-29 in 1989 at Ohio Stadium; 31-10 in 1990 at Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill; and 38-6 in the 1995 Kickoff Classic in East Rutherford, N.J.

Ohio State also announced a change to a previously revealed series with North Carolina. The game set for Sept. 5, 2015, has been moved to Sept. 22, 2018, at Ohio Stadium. There is no change to the game set for Sept. 23, 2017, in Chapel Hill, N.C.

COLUMBUS: Nine games and as many wins into his first season at Ohio State, Urban Meyer believes he might have something special going.

His sixth-ranked Buckeyes have won close games and routs, relied on their defense and on quarterback Braxton Miller, and have had no-names make big plays. Through it all, despite being within a whisper of losing, they've persevered.

The best reason, according to Meyer, is that they've come together, played as a team and the seniors and coaches have refused to let them slip.

After a game this week against struggling Illinois, the Buckeyes have a bye week, then a big road test at Wisconsin and the annual season-ending showdown with rival Michigan.

Ohio State is rated fourth in the Associated Press preseason college basketball poll.

The Buckeyes are one of three Big Ten teams ranked in the top five, along with Indiana (No. 1) and Michigan (No. 5). Michigan State (No. 14) and Wisconsin (No. 23) are the other Big Ten teams in the top 25.

Ohio State is also rated fourth in the preseason USA Today coaches poll.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa.: The Big Ten won't hand out a championship trophy to the winner of the Ohio State-Penn State game Saturday night, so bragging rights will have to do.

The ninth-ranked Buckeyes and surging Nittany Lions just might be the class of the conference at midseason, but neither team can win the league title or play in the postseason because of NCAA sanctions.

Saturday's meeting then, has turned into a virtual midseason bowl game, complete with a national television audience and plenty of hype. About 107,000 rowdy fans are expected to pack Beaver Stadium, which would be the first sellout of the season.

Welcome to the "Ineligi-Bowl."

"We only get the chance to lay it on the line 12 times, 12 Saturdays. So every game for us is a very, very big game," Penn State coach Bill O'Brien said. "And we're playing probably the best team in the Big Ten this week, with a great head coach in Urban Meyer."

When Ohio State plays Penn State on Saturday, the Buckeyes will again be without running back Jordan Hall.

The senior may even be out for the rest of the season with a knee injury. Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer said Wednesday that Hall, who hasn't played since Sept. 29, could redshirt.

Hall has had an injury-plagued year. Over the summer, he required tendon surgery in his foot after stepping on a piece of glass. Despite a partially torn knee ligament, Hall played against California and UAB. He had six carries for 26 yards and a touchdown against Michigan State, but left the game due to knee problems.

On the season, Hall has 40 carries for 218 yards and a touchdown. He also has three receptions for 31 yards.

COLUMBUS: A Columbus sports talk-show host who was suspended after he tweeted he wished ESPN's Desmond Howard would get fired or die has been dismissed by his station.

WBNS 97.1 The Fan, an ESPN affiliate and the flagship station for Ohio State athletics, posted a message on Twitter on Wednesday which said, "Scott Torgerson is no longer employed by our company as of today. We appreciate his contributions and wish him well in his future endeavors.

Ohio State and Oregon have agreed to a home-and-home series with games to be played in 2020 in Eugene, Ore., and in 2021 in Ohio Stadium.

The Buckeyes and the Ducks have met eight times, including in the 2010 Rose Bowl game, a 26-17 Ohio State win. The first meeting between the teams came in the 1958 Rose Bowl, a 10-7 Ohio State win. All six meetings between those Rose Bowl games were Ohio State wins.

The Ohio State band is on quite the string of viral productions. At halftime this week, the band made all sorts of alien shapes and had that alien dance. The reason why is a little odd, but it's still neat to watch.

Miller lay motionless for several minutes after being thrown to the turf by Purdue defensive back Josh Johnson late in the third quarter of the ninth-ranked Buckeyes’ dramatic 29-22 overtime win on Saturday. He was carted to the locker room and then taken to the hospital where he was treated and released.

Peculiarly enough, the notice came via a snail mail letter. Not a fax, phone call or even text. An old-fashioned stamp-and-envelope package.

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith told the PD that OSU won't schedule a BCS team. Smith told reporter Doug Lesmerises that it will still be a home game but the school will have to pay the opponent more money. The school was scheduled to pay Vanderbilt $1.2 million.

COLUMBUS: A Columbus sports talk-show host who tweeted he wished ESPN's Desmond Howard would get fired or die has been suspended by his station.

Dave Van Stone, president and general manager of WBNS 97.1 The Fan, confirmed Tuesday that Scott Torgerson has been suspended indefinitely for the tweet. WBNS is an ESPN affiliate and the flagship station for Ohio State athletics.

Torgerson tweeted over the weekend that he wished Howard, a former Heisman Trophy winner at Ohio State's chief rival Michigan, would get fired or die so Torgerson could again watch ESPN's College GameDay.

Kirk Herbstreit, a former Ohio State player who is a college football analyst on ESPN with Howard, blasted Torgerson during his own WBNS program. Herbstreit said the tweet was "disgusting and very sad" and "crossed a line."

INDIANAPOLIS: Urban Meyer may not know the brutal details of all those previous Ohio State-Indiana games.

Really, there's no need to.

With a first-year coach at Ohio State, a second-year coach at Indiana and new-school approaches in both places, there will be a new evolution to this series Saturday night.

"Everybody's trying to get an advantage and this (hurry-up offense) is an advantage if you know what you're doing," said Meyer, the Buckeyes coach. "I have a coaching staff, a guy that's done that a lot. I didn't have a big background in that hurry-up. We ran the spread, but we were not a hurry-up team, so this hurry-up is kind of new to me."

The goal, of course, is to run more plays than the other team and score points by the dozens.

There are very few places in America where a pizza order by a football coach's wife would make it to TV and become a mini-controversy that would require the school issuing a statement.

Welcome to THE Ohio State University.

It all began with the wife of defensive assistant (and last year's interim head coach) Luke Fickell phoning a local pizza parlor to call in an order. The kid who took the call took down her name and made a crack about how Ohio State's defense needed to improve. Somehow, the shop's manager heard about the comment and fired the kid who made the crack.

The first may be 10 years from now, Ohio State has scheduled a home-and-home two-game series with the University of Texas.

According to Bruce Feldman of CBS Sports, the two storied college football programs will play each other in 2022 and 2023. The first game will be played on Sept. 17, 2022 at Texas Stadium. Texas will play at Ohio Stadium on Sept. 16, 2023.

The two schools last played each other in the 2009 Fiesta Bowl. The game, a 24-21 Texas win, was decided in the final minutes. Ohio State has played Texas just three times. They had a home-and-home in 2005 and 2006. Texas leads the all-time series 2-1.

Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith told the Associated Press that playing a team like Texas "creates remarkable experiences for our players and fans."

Earlier this month Ohio State announced a home-and-home series with TCU. Thereave been reports that Ohio State is trying to increase the quality on non-conference opponents.

Ohio State's marching band had quite the performance Saturday at halftime of the Nebraska game.

The Best Damn Band in the Land paid tribute to video games, playing the themes to Super Mario Bros., the Legend of Zelda, Pokemon, Halo and others. They were accompanied by symbols from each of the games to the crowd's delight.

The six-minute mark with the horse is particularly impressive. The band even managed to knock rival Michigan in the video. At the 7:30 mark, a castle formed like at the end of Mario Bros. level. As a Michigan flag is lowered, and Ohio State one raises and fireworks go off.

FORT WORTH, Texas - After a sensational performance that included 186 rushing yards and 127 passing yards, Ohio State's Braxton Miller has been named the Davey O'Brien Quarterback of the Week. Miller played an integral role in the Buckeyes' 63-38 win over the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

While leading his team to their most points scored in a conference game since 1983, the Ohio native was outstanding, rushing for 15 or more yards five times, including big gains of 31 and 72 yards. Miller is now second in the Big Ten with 763 rushing yards and has rushed for over 100 yards in four of his first six games.

"Having someone like Braxton making a big play got the crowd back into it," Ohio State wide receiver Corey Brown said. "He got us into the game along with the crowd and gave us confidence we would be able to score."

Ohio State will look to stay perfect as they head to Memorial Stadium next Saturday to face the Indiana Hoosier.

Ohio State freshman quarterback Cardale Jones doesn't seem to like going to school and he wants you to know about it.

This morning, Jones fired off this tweet (via Deadspin) before feeling the backlash shutting down his Twitter account:

"Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain't come to play SCHOOL, classes are POINTLESS."

Now would be a good time to remind everyone that Jones is on a full scholarship at Ohio State. According to the university, the average annual tuition with room and board for a student from Ohio is just more than $20,000. Jones played high school football at Cleveland-Glenville.

Really, the strangest part about all this is that Jones dropped this opinion on a Friday. What self-respecting college student schedules classes on a Friday?

EAST LANSING, Mich.: The Big Ten has determined that a Michigan State player did not violate the conference's conduct policy after Ohio State sent in film that appeared to show him trying to gouge the eyes of a Buckeyes player.

A video Ohio State sent to the Big Ten appeared to show Allen trying to get his gloved hand inside the facemask of Ohio State defensive lineman Johnathan Hankins during Saturday's Ohio State victory in East Lansing. At the same time, Hankins was trying to get his hands inside Allen's facemask.

Hollis concluded that Allen's actions "weren't a football play" but also it was not an eye-gouging incident.

COLUMBUS: Whether his coaches call him Corey or call him Philly, all that matters to Ohio State's Corey Brown is that they just keep calling his number.

Brown, dubbed "Philly" because of his hometown to differentiate him from defensive back Corey "Pittsburgh" Brown, has suddenly become the long-awaited go-to guy at wide-receiver for the Buckeyes.

"I just like the position I'm in right now, basically doing a little bit of everything," he said. "It's obviously a perfect position, being able to get some carries, being able to do the screen passes and also getting some downfield throws."

The fallout from Ohio State's 17-16 win over Michigan State on Saturday continues.

After Saturday's game, Michigan State defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi alleged that Ohio State sent in doctored game tape. It was an issue that was reportedly settled by the two schools' athletic directors.